coherent
/kəʊˈhɪə.ɹənt/
"coherent" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“coherent” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #12,388 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #12,388
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
- 12
- tracked misspellings
- 1
- confusable pair
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Unified; sticking together; making up a whole.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | coherent |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /kəʊˈhɪə.ɹənt/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #12,388 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “coherent” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for coherent is 8 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /kəʊˈhɪə.ɹənt/. Corpus data places it at rank #12,388 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 12 likely wrong-spelling variants for coherent, with forms such as "ccoherent", "choerent", and "coehrent". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "coherence", a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle French coherent, from Latin cohaērēns, from co- + haereō. By surface analysis, cohere + -ent. The correct English form is coherent, spelled C-O-H-E-R-E-N-T.
Definition
- 1Unified; sticking together; making up a whole.
- 2Orderly, logical and consistent.
- 3Aesthetically ordered.
- 4Having a natural or due agreement of parts; harmonious: a coherent design.
- 5Of waves having the same direction, wavelength and phase, as light in a laser.
- 6Attaching or pressing against an organ of the same nature.
- 7Belonging to a specific class of sheaves having particularly manageable properties closely linked to the geometrical properties of the underlying space. See Coherent sheaf on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
- 8In a technical sense, determined by the (topology of) the subsets. Formally, Such that 𝒯 is the finest topology on T for which the inclusion maps ιₐ:C_a→T are continuous, where each C_a is considered with its subspace topology.
- 9Finitely generated and such that all finitely generated submodules are finitely presented.
- 10Such that every finitely generated (left) ideal is finitely presented.
Etymology
From Middle French coherent, from Latin cohaērēns, from co- + haereō. By surface analysis, cohere + -ent.
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ccoherent,choerent,coehrent,coheernt,coherennt,coherentt,coheretn,cohernet,coherrent,cohherent,cohreent,ocherent
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of coherent - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “coherent”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-O-H-E-R-E-N-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /kəʊˈhɪə.ɹənt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “coherence” - see the side-by-side comparison. coherent vs coherence
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.